Stronghold
by TimelordBlues
Summary: After the events of Stronghold, Samantha Carter has a few words for Cameron, and they're not ones he's likely to want to hear...


_Watching Season 9, it really pisses me off how hard the writers were trying to make us care about Mitchell. Every episode, they shovelled a new helping of tragic backstory at us, as if hoping that that would give him credibility as the new leader of SG-1. And he gets away with so much, because there's always ~backstory~ reasons why his hotheadedness is actually noble, or something. Well, I don't buy that, and I wish the writers had let him develop slowly over time, and won our respect through what he did onscreen with SG-1, instead of trying to cut through all that with supposed past trauma and heroics. With that in mind, here's a conversation I felt needed to happen to snap Mitchell out of it..._

"Hey, Cam!"

Cameron Mitchell turned to see Colonel Samantha Carter jogging along the corridor towards him.

"Sam. I'm not really…"

"We need to talk."

Having caught him up, Sam stopped abruptly, parking herself directly in his path. He tried to sidestep her, to keep walking, but she was an immoveable force, blocking his way.

"We need to talk," she repeated, "about what happened on that planet. What you did to save Teal'c…"

"Look, Sam," he interrupted, "I would've done the same for anyone, ok? We watch each other's backs. It's part of the job."

With that, he tried to move past her again, but she was not having it.

"I'm sick of your stunts, Cam. You charged out there without a second thought, just ran out there, playing the hero, not a single thought for everyone who had to back you up. We had a plan, Cam. A little slower than you had in mind, maybe, but it would've gotten us there, with much less risk. Forget that you could've died, we all could have. Daniel, me, SG-7, everyone out there was compromised because you had to get clever. Lieutenant Greyson was hit. So was Major Colby. Both of them had to break cover to cover your ass. We're lucky they're not dead; still don't know how well they'll recover. So yeah. You got Teal'c out. But you damn near got everyone else killed doing it. I don't know what this complex of yours is, but you better snap out of it, because if you keep pulling this shit, nobody is going to be willing to go through that gate with you."

Cameron was stunned. Sam was the calmest person he'd ever met. He didn't think he'd ever seen her be anything but level-headed and supportive, steering even the most volatile of situations and people to a peaceful resolution. And here she was, tearing shreds off of him in the middle of a public space. He didn't know how to react.

"Sam, I…"

She looked at him expectantly, but all he could do was gape. Eventually, she broke the silence.

"You read all our mission files when you got the job here, right?"

Puzzled by the sudden change in subject, Cameron nodded.

"Do you remember P3X-666?"

Cameron thought for a moment, then warily responded.

"Exploratory survey gone wrong. A soldier was killed, right?"

"Doctor Janet Fraiser."

Sam's voice was tight, and every inch of her tense, but her eyes drilled into Cameron so that he couldn't look away.

"She was a remarkable woman. This whole base depended on her. And we all loved her. She was my best friend. She was incredibly dear to me. I had to tell her daughter that her mother was dead. Losing Janet was the hardest thing I have ever gone through. And I have been through some shit. The one thing that made it any better was the soldier she saved. I wanted to hate him, to blame him for needing her, for getting hit. But it wasn't his fault. They were ambushed. He got hit. And we don't leave anyone behind."

Cam couldn't take it any longer.

"What's your point, Sam?" he demanded sullenly.

"My point, Cam," she responded, matching him glare for glare, "is this. Today reminded me of that day. I had this image of you getting hit, going down. Of Janet having to come through to save your ass. Only, you wouldn't have deserved it."

He flinched at the brutality of the statement, but Sam wasn't done yet. She went on, gentler now:

"Cam, it seems like every mission we go on, something happens, something bubbles up, from your past. And every single time, it gets in the way. You put yourself in danger, you put your team in danger, all to satisfy some old wound you've scratched the scab off."

She paused, and heaved a deep sigh, suddenly tired.

"I'm not judging you Cam, honestly I'm not. I'm not trying to condemn you. I know you've gone through a lot. But Cam, missions are not the right place to work through that. If you need to get some help, some support, I will be right there with you. If you need some time off active duty, that's fine. All of us have needed that at one time or another, even if we didn't see it at the time. Hell, General O'Neill took a couple of months off once, to get his head back on straight, and when he was ready, he came right back to SG-1. And then they asked him to run this place. It's not weakness to need some space."

She took a step back.

"Look, I'm not your CO. I can't order you to do anything. But I can tell you, I'm not going off-world with you again until you're in control of this. And if that means I have to leave the SGC again, so be it."

With that, Sam gave him one last, long, look, then stepped past him and walked back down the corridor she'd come from.

Just before she rounded the corner, she paused.

"Think about it" she called over her shoulder. Then she was gone, and Mitchell was alone with his thoughts.


End file.
